Enlarged with AI from a smaller original
Axe in a chopping block on a forearm
Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo
The tattoo shows an axe with its blade sunk into a cut log or chopping block, drawn with thin, shaded linework in an engraved illustration style. The design is in black and grey ink and sits on the forearm against a plain light background. The composition is centred on the tattoo, with a patterned dress visible at the left edge of the frame.
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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction
Dear Ruth, the stove has eaten the last of the ash logs and I am down to the knotted elm that Tom left under the tarp at Hythe lock. I have been out on the towpath since six with the hatchet, trying to split it the way he showed me, but the grain runs crosswise and the block keeps swallowing the blade. Yesterday the head came clean off the handle and went into the canal like a fish. I fished it out with the boathook, dried it on my jumper, and wedged it back on with a sliver of oak. It holds for now.
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The block itself is an old stump from the coppice above the lock, cut square by the man who kept the orchard before the flood. It has a split down one side like a mouth. Every evening I sit on the step with the dog and watch the light go off the water and wonder whether you would have laughed at the state of my hands. You always said I could not lift a kettle without making a production of it.
The barge is quiet and the reeds are full of coots. I will come down to London when the frost goes, if the engine will start. Keep the kettle warm for me. I have stopped pretending the elm will split by itself. Love, Margaret
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